Question

EVALUATING THE EVIDENCE Is BMI a Good Measure of Fatness in Elite Athletes? A Look at the NFL Professional football players are recognized for their massive body habitus and are often used as an example of "overweight" but not necessarily "overfat" athletes. Interested in the actual rates of BMI-defined overweight and obesity in the National Football League (NFL). researchers from the University of North Carolina carried out a study evaluating the BMIs of NFL players.71 The researchers scoured the heights and weights of the football players as listed on the NFL website and calculated BMIs of 2,168 players. Based on this study, an equal percentage of NFL players were of normal weight as were morbidly obese. The percentage of NFL players with a BMI of 30 or greater was more than double the percentage among 20- to 39-year-old men in a nationally representative sample. The study found that cornerback-defensive backs had the lowest mean BMI (26.8 [SD, 1.2]) and guards had the highest mean BMI (38.2 [SD, 2.11) Shortly after the study was released, the NFL issued a press release saying the study was irrelevant, mostly because it relied on BMI to classify obesity. 1. What are three strengths and three weaknesses of the study? 2. List three ways the authors might have strengthened the research design 3. Explain why you agree or disagree with the following statement: "BMI is a good indicator of body fat percentage in football players. 4. Likely in response to the study described above, the NFL funded a study to evaluate the health risk pro- files of players, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The authors con- cluded that "compared with a sample of healthy young-adult men, a sample of substantially larger NFL players had a lower prevalence of impaired fasting glucose, less reported smoking, a similar prevalence of dyslipidemia, and a higher prevalence of hypertension. Increased size measured by BMI was associated with increased CVD risk factors in this combined population."72 What do you make of these findings?

Take a look at the section evaluating the evidence, titled "Is BMI a Good Measure of Fatness in Elite Athletes? A Look at the NFL" on page 260.

Answer the following questions.

1. List at least 1 strength and 1 weakness of the study?

2. Explain why you agree or disagree with the following statement: "BMI is a good indicator of body fat percentage in football players."

Answer 1

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